Win a contest or the employment? I seek the latter

That’s what really matters, according to Dinh Nhut Nam, who has just received the offer to work for Deloitte Consulting after this big four financial corporation considered his performance in its bootcamp.

Dinh Nhut Nam

Nam is a fresh graduate from the school of Business Administration and Economics of Tan Tao University, where he pursued the concentration of Marketing and Supply Chain. But it will be so wrong to take him as a “regular” fresh graduate like all the others. He won the first prize in the 2017 Marketing Category of Di Roi Se Den (Going to get there) Contest organised by Biti’s Hunter and Kenh14, led his start up agency to win the pitch to write a white paper for Unoglobal, and had just recently earned the offer to work for Deloitte Consulting, one of four biggest consulting firms worldwide. He also has extensive marketing experience for technology start-ups, especially those in the field of blockchain.

Come on terms with marketing

He said that sociability and the joy of interacting with other people is what prompted him to go for marketing. However, the victory of Biti’s Hunter may really have been what kept him with marketing all along.

In this nationwide competition, the challenge was to build a marketing-PR plan to launch a new pair of shoes from Biti’s Hunter. Nam succeeded with the big idea of the shoes seen as dream-weavers for the youth. In other words, for their dreams to come true, what the youth can do is to put on their shoes, lace them up and start off with a strong passion to explore and work on those dreams.

He won the chance to participate in team meetings and agency discussions at Biti’s for his first price. After that intern period, he then joined a one-week Young Spike Conference organised in Singapore where numerous talks and discussions led by premier seniors in the industry took place.

Nam enjoying his first prize in Singapore

The brilliant lesson learned from this experience, Nam said, is the need for alogical and arational ideas to be put forward. Shame of wrong ideas is the killer of creativity.

The first marketing pig’s ear

After his initial glorious success with the Marketing Contest, he decided to push on with the Management Trainee contests. But it’s not always a smooth progression from university to the first dream job.

Nam on one hand, failed last rounds at Unilever, Samsung, and Castrol, but on the other hand, won a handful of feedback. Some of the feedback proved vital in his success at Deloitte nearly two years later. Unilever said that he must try to take ownership of things, which means that he needs to build his self-credibility by taking responsibility with what he does.

“I realised that I need to have the courage to say that ‘it’s my idea, and I take full responsibility where it’ll fail or succeed’ or other members in the team will otherwise not see me as a reliable person to commend their trust,” he says.

Tech–marketing convergence

After the management trainee hurdle, Nam then spent his time working for various start-ups. At the beginning, he did his internship at Infinity Blockchain Labs before working for ChatQ. Both of these companies are of the blockchain industry although he’d had little knowledge in this field prior to the time he worked there.

During that time, he may’ve failed to realised that the experience from those two blockchain start-ups is the crucial preliminary step towards his success at Deloitte Consulting. He really appreciates the fact how well co-founder of these start-ups cared for the staff. It, he said, helped bond every single individual in the company.

Nam among his teammates

“It may not be much, but it shows that he really cares. For instance, once I went bowling with my colleagues, my hand was a bit crooked while throwing the ball. They didn’t really see that I’d been doing with the wrong technique until that time when I went bowling together with the co-founder. The fact that he cared to point it out, and showed me the right way to do it was a tipping moment for me,” Nam says.

He said that he learned the art of making and keeping a team together. What it takes is the genuine care from the team leaders to constantly send the message that every member is a part of the team.

“Deloitte” moment

With all of his professional skills and edges, Nam decided to have a try with consulting industry to upgrade both his profile and his pay.

“After the initial call, I didn’t hear anything back from Deloitte for more than a month. I thought I fluffed it. But it came as a start that they asked me to join their bootcamp.” Said Nam.

In the bootcamp, ten participants were divided into two groups of five. Each group then received one real life business case that they need to build an advising plan.

Nam said that the experience he had in the past was what helped him make it. The feedback of Unilever in the Management Trainee Contest helped him to have the daring to stand up and the lead of the team though he’s the most junior. What he learned from his benevolent managers meanwhile, helped him to find the strength of each member in the team and give them opportunities to shine with it.

“I don’t know whether our team won the bootcamp, but I’m sure that my performance with the team won me an offer to work at Deloitte Consulting,” Nam smiles while saying.

Talking about the future, Nam said he plans to spend his time working in the consultation industry for about two to three years before doing an advanced degree. With all the experience he earns from the job of counselling, something like a master degree will be an excellent opportunity to reflect his experience on a structural construct of knowledge.